Abstract:
Charles Q. Choi: The petroleum used to make adhesives, coatings and in the future, inks and even plastics, could get replaced with nanoparticles of sugar and starch, experts told UPI's Nano World.

The starch in the nanoparticles comes from crops, a renewable resource, unlike petroleum, said John van Leeuwen, chairman and chief executive officer of biomaterials company Ecosynthetix in Lansing, Mich.